Trailblazer Energy Center

Tenaska, Inc., is evaluating a site east of Sweetwater, Texas, for a supercritical coal plant designed to capture 85 to 90 percent of the CO2 produced from combustion and deliver it by pipeline to Permian Basin oil field for use in enhanced oil recovery. The gross rating of the project is 765 megawatts (MW), but the power demands of the carbon capture technology lower the net capacity to 600 MW.

As of October 2010, an air quality permit for the plant remains pending before state environmental regulators.

Project Launch
Tenaska announced the project -- dubbed by the company as the "Tenaska Trailblazer Energy Center" -- at a media conference held on February 19, 2008 at Texas State Technical College, West Texas. Speaking in support of the proposal were Sweetwater Enterprise for Economic Development Executive Director, Ken Becker; County Judge Tim Fambrough, State Representative, Susan King; Tenaska Manager of Business Development, Helen Manroe; and Tenaska Vice President of Environmental Affairs, Greg Kunkel.

On the same day as the announcement, Tenaska filed an application for an air permit with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. "The final decision to proceed with the project will be made in 2009 based on a number of factors, including the availability of local, state and federal incentives; final project cost estimates; and projected market prices for electricity and CO2. Current estimates of these factors make the project appear to be economically feasible," Tenaska stated.

The company stated that "construction could begin in late 2009 and be completed in 2014." On the day of the announcement, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) issued a statement of qualified support for the project. "We look forward to discussing with Tenaska ways to make legally binding the promises they have made concerning the capture and storage of their carbon dioxide emissions so that we do not oppose their applications for a permit," EDF's director of the Texas Regional Office, Jim Marston, stated.

In March 2009, Tenaska CEO David Fiorelli said the company is waiting to see what cap-and-trade legislation or other measures Congress implements before going ahead with the project. The plant will use about 25 percent of its energy to capture and compress carbon dioxide. Adding carbon capture equipment will increase the project costs by 40 percent. Given these figures, "there has to be a pretty compelling economic reason that you would want to use 25 percent of power and increase your capital cost so substantially," Fiorelli said.

It was announced in July 2010 that Fluor would be supplying the Trailblazer Energy Center with the company's carbon capture technology. The power plant is designed to capture 85 to 90 percent of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and send it through a pipeline to be used in enhanced oil recovery. The company stated that it had done all of the initial design and engineering work on Trailblazer and is the project’s construction contracto

Tenaska received an air permit for the power plant in December 2010. Earlier in 2010, the Environmental Defense Fund dropped its opposition in the TCEQ permit case after Tenaska agreed to limit water use and to sequester most CO2 produced by the plant.

Tenaska moves forward with DOE funding
On March 3, 2010 Tenaska announced that its Taylorville station would cost $3.5 billion and would go on-line in 2014. The plant would burn coal to produce syngas. The company stated that the plant would be a "net reducer" of CO2. The plant plans to use carbon capture and storage to displace up to 50 percent of its CO2 emissions. Tenaska also said it still needs Illinois environmental regulators to issue an air permit as well as the U.S. Department of Energy, which agreed to give the project a $2.6 billion loan guarantee, to complete an environmental review of the proposed project. The facility will be located on a 713-acre site near the town of Taylorville, which is located approximately 35 miles southeast of the capital of Springfield.

Arch Coal Financing
On March 12, 2010 it was announced that Arch Coal purchased a 35 percent minority equity stake in the developing Trailblazer Energy Center. Arch stated that they will supply Trailblazer with its fuel needs for its first 20 years of operations. Coal burned in the plant will come from Arch's mines in the Powder River Basin. Arch believes that the plant will eventually utilize so-called "clean coal" technology. In 2009 Arch donated $1.5 million to the University of Wyoming for research on carbon sequestration.

Tenaska receives $7.7 million from non-profit carbon capture group
In October 2010 it was announced that Tenaska will receive $7.7 million in grant money to be used for an engineering design study of carbon capture technology in its proposed Trailblazer plant. The money is coming from the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, an Australia-based organization that receives financial backing from the Australian government. The not-for-profit organization’s membership includes the governments of the United States and more than a dozen other nations, as well as companies in the coal and power industries, including Tenaska. The grant “provides international recognition of the really pioneering role that Trailblazer is expected to play to reduce carbon emissions,” said Helen Manroe, Tenaska’s manager of development.

Tenaska’s Trailblazer is one of six projects to receive funding from the institute in awards. The only other American project to receive funding is another Tenaska effort, a plan still in its early stages to retrofit with carbon capture technology a coal-fired power plant in Louisiana.

April 2010: EDF OKs Plant
In April 2010, the Environmental Defense Fund announced, alongside Tenaska Energy, that the group would not oppose the issuance of air quality permits for the Trailblazer Energy Center, in light of the plant's "advanced environmental features." Tenaska and the Environmental Defense Fund signed an agreement under which the company agreed that the plant, which could open as early as 2015, will contain equipment designed to capture "at least 85 percent" of the carbon dioxide produced by the plant. Tenaska plans to sell the gas to Denbury Resources for "enhanced oil recovery" in west Texas oil fields. The company also agreed to "limit" water usage at the plant to an average of 1 million gallons daily - two million gallons on days when power demand is especially high.

October 2010: Judge dismisses chemical pollution concerns from carbon capture
After concerns raised by some environmental groups and a hearing in Austin in early 2010, state administrative law judges released an advisory proposal in October 2010 that called for Tenaska to lower its pollutions limits, with the judges citing lower pollution levels included in permits for new coal-fired plants elsewhere. The judges also recommended that additional pollution testing be done after emissions pass through carbon capture technology. The judges largely dismissed, however, the relevance of a Norwegian study cited by the Multi-County Coalition, who oppose the Tenaska plant. Wendi Hammond, a lawyer for the coalition, has said the research illustrated concerns about how chemicals known as amines—similar to ammonia—used in carbon capture technology could react to form harmful pollution. In the Austin hearing, an expert witness for Tenaska, toxicology consultant Paul Greywall, testified that other research found no such cause for concern about harmful pollutants coming from carbon capture technology. But the judges recommended pollution before and after emissions pass through the carbon capture process as a way to find out if the process results in higher emissions.

July 2011: West Texas city allows Tenaska to purchase water
In July 2011 the City Council of the West Texas town of Stamford voted to allow Tenaska to buy the city's water. With Stamford's approval, Tenaska will now have access to approximately 250 million gallons of water a year. However, the company still needs to find hundreds of millions of gallons of water and needs to go through an appeal process on its air permit before construction of the plant can begin.

PR Company Assisting Tenaska

 * Laurie S. Parker from Elizabeth Christian & Associates Public Relations

Project Details
Sponsor: Tenaska Location: Sweetwater, TX Capacity: 765 MW (gross), 600 MW (net) Type: supercritical with 85% - 90% carbon capture Status: Proposed

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